Kyle was alone in the master bedroom getting his gear on as he prepared to head back out into the city in pursuit of the Winter Park Gang’s hired thief. In the time that he’s spent in Crown Ridge, he’s been able to put together a list of leads on the organizations whereabouts as well as their network of hired goons. He planned to sneak out while Sam kept the others company in the living room, and hoped that by the time anyone noticed that he was gone, it would be too late.
“Going somewhere?” Sam’s voice came from behind him.
“Yeah, I’m going to see if I can track down the thief from the museum or the guys who got the jump on us...or both.” Kyle said as he stretched the cowl back over his head and face.
“No, you’re not.” Sam shot back in a tone that surprised Kyle.
“What?” Kyle asked, with a noticeable amount of surprise in his voice.
“We’ve got a house full of guests that you brought home, why don’t you take the night off and spend it here?The bad guys will still be there tomorrow.” Sam said.
“I need you to keep them company while I’m out.” Kyle told her. “They aren’t prepared for what this city can throw at them.”
“Do you really think that they’re going to be okay with that?” Sam asked him as aggravation began to grow within her.
“They don’t have a choice.” Kyle told her.
“And do you honestly think that Sammy will just sit here with me and her friends?” Sam asked. “The girl is absolutely in love with you. She’s not going to let you go anywhere without her, and to be completely honest with you, I wouldn't be able to stop her.”
“You noticed that, huh?” Kyle asked, somewhat embarrassed by the situation.
“Please. Ray Charles could see what’s going on there.” Sam said with a smirk. “Not that I can blame her, but you need to do something about this before it goes too far.”
Unbeknownst to Kyle and Sam, someone was standing within earshot of their master bedroom. Before Kyle’s girlfriend left to find Kyle, she had given Sammy one of Kyle’s t-shirts, which almost looked like a dress on Sammy, and a pair of shorts. While Sammy did have her superhero threads to wear, they made her look too conspicuous and that costume could endanger the identities of the others.
Just a few minutes prior, Sammy was wondering whether they could get some refreshments. Since it would have been rude for the three metahumans to just scavenge through Kyle’s refrigerator, Sammy tried to find her two hosts. Although Kelly suggested that she wait until they came back, Sammy ignored her advice and went looking for their hosts. That was when she discovered that Kyle was trying to skip out on them and that even Kyle’s girlfriend could tell that Sammy held a giant crush on Lyger.
After overhearing Kyle and his girlfriend speaking about her, Sammy tried to sneak away so that they would not know that she was eavesdropping on their conversation. However, her feline abilities did not seem to include an uncanny amount of luck, or at least not in that moment. For when she tried to slowly creep away, the wooden floors beneath her feet creaked, betraying Sammy’s presence just outside of her host’s bedroom. When she heard the noise coming from the floor, Sammy froze in place, not quite sure whether she should just make a break for it back to where Zac and Kelly were.
“Maybe that explains it. I’m not blind, or de…” Kyle stopped mid-sentence as he heard the sound of the floorboards outside of the bedroom creaking.
“What was that?” Sam asked as Kyle was already halfway across the room heading towards the sound.
Kyle opened the bedroom door and much to his relief; found Sammy standing in the hallway, her face turning a slight shade of red from embarrassment from being caught in the hallway.
“Hey Sammy, do you need something?” Kyle asked, equally embarrassed. Neither he nor Sam were used to sharing their home with others, and thus had grown unaccustomed to the sounds that come along with having a full house.
“Um…” Sammy stumbled with her words because she was paralyzed out of embarrassment, “Could we get some drinks and snacks?”
“Oh, of course.” Kyle said, almost kicking himself for being such a bad host. “Follow me.” Kyle told her as he lead her back down to the kitchen, with Sam also emerging from the bedroom and joining them.
Kyle and Sam let the others help themselves to the contents of their fridge while they heated up a frozen pizza in the oven. While the pizza was cooking, Kyle joined Sam, Sammy, and the others in the living room and they talked. Although Kyle had been on edge at first, his desire to rush right back out and track down the Winter Park Gang began to wain. Instead, he found himself doing something that he hadn’t done in months: Having a genuinely good time. Eventually, the pizza had finished cooking and Kyle went back out into the kitchen to get it ready to serve, and moments later came back with the pie sliced up and ready to eat.
As they ate, they talked about a number of subjects. They talked about their exploits in West Virginia during the Pax crisis, a conversation in which Kyle deliberately avoided the topic of how the Silver Sorceress had enchanted him, causing him to have visions of Sam’s death. Zac and Kelly told them about their abduction and subsequent rescue, as well as their reactions the first time they saw Sammy after her transformation. Although Kyle was familiar with their stories, hearing them tell the tales gave him a new insight into them as people, and not just files on a computer. Not only did he learn about them as people, he also learned that he actually liked them. Although he and Sammy had bonded in West Virginia, he had never really cared for Zac all that much. Kyle thought that he came off as being a bit arrogant, and carried himself with an air about him that Kyle just found off-putting. However, after actually getting to spend time with the three of them, Kyle found that they actually got along quite well.
Then there was Sammy. She was a nice girl who had performed well under pressure. However, she seemed to allow her feelings for Kyle to distract her, and that had almost gotten her killed tonight. Although he was very fond of the girl, he was with the love of his life, and he knew that he had to get this thing with Sammy settled, and quickly. He looked over to both Zac and Sam, who had each spoken to him about the need to quash this, and to do so in a way that wouldn’t crush the poor girl. Then he looked to Kelly, who like Zac had an air about her. However, with Kelly it was more of a “hurt her and I will kill you” sort of vibe. Kyle knew that he had to talk to Sammy, and that it was time. He just had no idea how he was going to do this.
“Hey Sammy, come for a walk with me.” He said as he got up from the chair he had been sitting in and motioned for her to follow him upstairs.
Sammy’s heart leapt inside of her. She was slightly surprised by the offer to get up with Kyle alone. She wondered what was up. It almost seemed as if everyone except for her were in on something. However, undeterred by being kept in the blue, Sammy hopped up from her seat and followed Kyle up the stairs. While they ascended the stairs, her heart began to flutter at the uncertainty for Kyle’s invitation. Before she had met Kyle’s girlfriend, who happened to have an almost identical name as her, Sammy thought playing the role of “Black Cat” or “Catwoman” would be a piece of cake. However, now that she finally seen Sam with her two eyes, things all the sudden became real.
Kyle led her through the house until they came to a doorway down the hall from the bedroom. When Kyle opened the door, it revealed a narrow stairwell which was reminiscent of something you might expect to see in a home built in the 1700’s. At the top of the stairs was another door.
“I know it doesn’t look it, but it’s safe.” Kyle said to Sammy as he led the way up the old staircase, each step creaked under his weight.
Once at the top of the stairs, Kyle opened the door and stepped out into the brisk night air onto the widow’s walk on the roof of the house. This place was at one time his sanctuary. When he was a child he would spend hours up on the walk where he would play and daydream. After the death of his mother, Kyle found the solitude offered by the widow’s walk refreshing.. He would spend hours up there alone, looking out over the city while he talked to his mother, and imagine her response.
“You know, when I was a kid, I’d come up here and read comics and pretend I was a superhero protecting the city. I never thought in a million years that I’d actually be doing what I’m doing now.” Kyle said with a lightness in his voice. “This city might have a lot of problems, they always seemed to go away when I was up here. In a way, it still seems like that’s true.”
“I guess we’re in the same boat there. If you would have told me just a few months ago that I was about to be transformed into a cat-like person, I would have laughed them straight out of the room.” Sammy told Kyle as she stood next to him. “And yet, here we are.”
Kyle smiled at the statement. There was something about the way that Sammy carried herself that Kyle found refreshing. She was fun loving and had a great sense of humor, even if she did seem a bit innocent at times. He gazed out at the street as he tried to figure out exactly how he was going to approach the real reason that he brought her up to the widow walk.
“Sammy, I like you. You’re a great person and I think that you’re going to be a great hero.” He told her. “I get the feeling that there’s more to this whole thing than just wanting to come to Crown Ridge to take in the sights. Look Sammy, I do care about you, and I’d never want to see you hurt. But I have to be honest with you...I’m with Sam, and I do love her.”
When Sammy heard what Kyle had to say, her cat ears began to droop as she sighed, looking over at the skyline. “A lot of heroes have it easy: they can just hang up their tights and blend in with everyone else. And if they can’t simply do that, they have some other way to bypass the issue. Zac and Kelly can hide their powers with those wristbands. And even without those devices, they still had each other while getting adjusted to their new powers. How else could you explain them
sleeping together when Zac is terrified by wasps and Kelly is basically a human one!”
Sammy then turned her head towards Kyle and continued. “But I don’t have that luxury. I can’t just hide who I am with some gadget. Even though they tried to make me feel comfortable with my powers, it just never been enough. And that’s saying a lot since Kelly and I have been friends since elementary school! I always felt as if I was the loose end that could accidentally reveal Zac’s secret identity. When people start seeing the publically known cat and wasp-girls with a male hero, the math isn’t that hard to do.”
“I was just hoping that I could bond with someone in the superhero community other than my friends. Normal people just don’t understand our lives. How crazy things get. When the average person sees me, they might only see me as some weird furry or something. But I was hoping that someone who has seen the bizarre things that happen in our lives could see past that. Sure, I might have cat ears and a tail, but that doesn’t make me any less of a human than anyone else.”
Kyle listened to Sammy, and as she spoke it was if someone had kicked him square in the gut and knocked the wind right out of him. He completely understood where she was coming from, and he sympathized. He had never considered exactly what it must like to be her, being unable to hide her powers, or even just take a break for just a minute. Every waking moment was a reminder of what had been taken from her. She hadn’t asked for these powers, and she wasn’t born with them. They were forced on her, and as these thoughts went through his mind, a renewed anger swelled inside of him.
“Sammy, I’ll always be here for you. If you ever need anything…” He paused for a moment as he reached for her cell phone that was hanging out of her pocket. He quickly went into her contacts and entered his personal number. “Call me. I mean it, we’re friends and you’re stuck with me.”
Sammy just stared with amazement at her phone. It almost did not feel real, but right before her eyes was Kyle’s contact information, including his phone number. “I promise I won’t bombard you with texts! We don’t want people growing suspicious about why you’re texting another girl named Sammy.”
Then, Sammy momentarily thought about what Zac and Kelly would think about her having Lyger’s personal number. She thought that they might try to convince her to delete the contact information because they might believe being able to contact Kyle whenever she wanted would only be enabling her.
“We might want to put this down under a pseudonym.” Sammy then told Kyle. “Zac and Kelly might freak out if they knew I had it.”
“Forget about what Zac and Kelly might think. This has nothing to do with them. We’re friends, and I’m always there for my friends.” Kyle said as his posture changed slightly. He looked down to the ground and a frown involuntarily crossed his face. “Or at least I try to be.” He finished his thoughts momentarily drifted to Ronnie and Addy, both of whom he felt that he had let down. For a moment he let the silence linger in the air before he returned his gaze to Sammy and forced a smile.
“Look, you’re an awesome girl, and someday you’re going to make somebody a very lucky man. But I want you to know, that we….Sam and I, will always be here for you.”
“Thank you!” Sammy lunged forward and wrapped her arms around Kyle. Her cat tail was swaying back and forth behind her hugged him. She then peered up at Kyle. “It really means a lot to me.”
“Hey, no problem.” Kyle told her. “And I meant what I said in the car. I can get you something that will help you with that.” Kyle said as he motioned to her ears and tail. “Not that there’s anything wrong with them, they suit you. But I know people who specialize in just that sort of thing, and they owe me.”
“Well, I guess it could be worse. For a little while, my head was stuck on a cat’s body. And let me tell you, it sucked!” When Sammy heard Kyle bring up the possibility of him getting her something that could hide her catlike features, she squeezed her arms around him for a second time. “That would be wonderful. I hope you won’t have to go through too much trouble to get them.”
“Nah, it won’t be a problem. I just have to make a couple of phone calls.” Kyle told her as she released her grip on him. “You deserve to be happy. You deserve to have the chance at a normal life...and I’m going to do what I can to help you with that.”
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